Suffering with Jesus, and Smiling with Him Too

How do you know when you’ve gotten through the bad times? How do you know when you’re in a really good place?

I have so many missionary friends, so many friends who are in ministry and a common theme among us is that consistently we are in a hard place.  There always seems to be a pressure on us to do or to say exactly what God wants. We are burdened with glorious purpose and we are unable to be happy with the mundane. That sounds so good on paper. When I write those words in my journal, or prophesy them to someone at church they make people feel very important, and they should. However, most days, I want to feel like I’m in a good place.

Last year was one of the hardest years of my life. Between embarassing financial difficulty, family drama, a dating life that rivaled most plucky rom-com heroines (you know, the dating life they talk about in the prologue), and feeling spiritually like I was just lost in a fog, I was having a rough time. But what really sucked was that I had felt like that on and off for years. I realized some point along the way, I hadn’t readjusted back to the typical day-to-day life after returning from G42. With each mission trip, or church I helped to start, or ministry I was assisting, every time those tenures would come to end I hadn’t adjusted. There is a strange duality here, between not settling for the mundane and wanting to live just one day where I don’t feel like I’m failing God because I haven’t had a magical encounter prophesying to a stranger at Starbucks.

Living like that was hard.

For me I had to come to a moment where I stood and faced God. “What do you want from me!?” I remember demanding of him. “NOT the big picture, but EVERY DAY!?” Needless to say that I was angry, and tired of feeling this way.

What shocked me however was that God didn’t answer, not right away. I’m sure most of you know that when you’re feeling like you’re hungry for more, and life isn’t satisfying God not responding right away can be annoying. Despite not hearing God, I did start to notice something; God was showing me what he wanted for me on a day-to-day basis. It would start with a favorite movie being on TV, maybe a song I loved would come on the radio, a friend would reach out and we’d chat like we hadn’t in a long time. Things in my life were making me happy.

When I was happy my guard was down, and that’s when God spoke. “I want you to be happy” he confirmed.

So often we talk about sharing in the suffering of Christ, we talk about dying daily to our flesh. When we think about emulating Jesus, and being a type of Christ to those around us we often think or portray the Jesus that suffered in the Garden as he prayed. (Matthew 26:42) I would like though to show people the Christ that laughed. The Christ that went to dinner at someone’s home and talked with them, and enjoyed them. We can’t be 100% sure if Jesus shared divine secrets when he was at the dinner table with his friends, or if he simply was checking in on how his disciples families were doing, or laughing about an inside joke. We can be sure that the man portrayed in the Bible showed the goodness of God, and the Joy of God just as much as he showed us the suffering, and the strength to pass up temptation.

By the end of September this year I wasn’t thinking too much about how hard God was testing me. I was thinking mostly about how much God loved me. I hadn’t realized how far I had actually come until my Fiance and I decided to sneak into the Awakening in Gainesville GA. After seeing Andrew for the first time in years he grabbed me and said to me “You’re doing okay, kid. It’s been a long time coming, but you’re going to be just fine.” For the first time since I’d been back on US soil in June of 2010 I believed that.

In short, I encourage each of you who are having a hard time readjusting to life, or looking for the supernatural in everyday life to know that you’re doing okay. It’s going to get better eventually. Don’t lose the hunger of God, but live in the every day in the now and know that God is in you and he wants you to be happy. That’s a supernatural experience everyone is looking for. Being Christ to the world isn’t always standing in line at the grocery store and healing the sick, sometimes it’s standing in line at the grocery store and starting a conversation with the person in front of you about the cheesy tabloids they’re looking over. Remember; Christ in you is the hope of Glory.

You’ve got this.

Happy (Day After) International Women's Day

So, I guess I blog about women's issues now. Go figure. I had hoped to get a blog up for international women's day, but life was a bit hectic and I had a million things going on so the day after will have to do.

On Facebook a friend shared a photo with a poem by Rupi Kaur from her book Milk and Honey.

i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautifulbefore i’ve called them intelligent or bravei am sorry i made it sound as thoughsomething as simple as what you’re born withis all you have to be proud ofwhen you have broken mountains with your wit from now on i will say things likeyou are resilient, or you are extraordinarynot because i don’t think you’re beautifulbut because i need you to knowyou are more than that

My response was rather silly, however it was one that I often use when referencing things that move me. "Well, I hadn't planned on crying today."

The thing is, I was moved by the sheer grace of this poem. Not negating the beauty of women, but encouraging their other qualities. Moved so much that sitting at my desk low key checking on facebook, I felt my throat tighten and my eyes water. I was the girl who was resilient, who could be more than just the features she was born with. All women could be.

As a western woman my issues look different than my fellow feminists across the globe. Here we fight for equal pay, and economic status among other things. In western Europe women fight for the right to their bodies and their health. In many parts of Asia women fight for the right to exists with out being the property or the pleasure of a man.

No mater what the struggles women face, no matter how trivial they are we should support one another.

On this (day after) International Women's Day we should focus on things that bind us together in the female experience. Support one another, know that we are more than just pretty faces, we are more than just cute dresses, we are more than just our jobs. We are fully formed personalities forged by our own desires. We are the masters of our destiny, or own bodies, our own rights.

I support you my sisters, and I am thankful that I can see what you have become, and what you will become.

Uplift One Another; For God's Sake, Uplift!!

It bothers me that women claiming to be feminists attack one another and drag one another over men.

I think a lot about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk from (I believe this is right) 2013. Titled, "We Should All Be Feminists". When I am feeling weak or discredited by my gender I will listen to it. I will burn the comments into my mind, the statements made by this beautiful and wise woman. Her statements about rearing children, about gender expectations. But what most inspires me is one of the more iconic moments of this talk. Beyoncé sampled this moment in her song "Flawless".

We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs, or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men.

This is something that as one of three daughters I have experienced first hand. My older half-sister and I had the same taste in men from the age of 12, when she moved in with us, to the age of 17 when thankfully I discovered heavy metal music and a completely different genre of men.

As I got older this problem resolved it's self as I began to realize I didn't want to be in competition with women for the affections of men. First and foremost I was always the girl with the "Plan". Detailed charts of how I was going to live my life, the time tables I'd follow to get there. (How that turned out is a different blog for another time.) Men were simply going to have to fit around this detailed schedule.

When I did date, it was very casual, very low key. I was the girl people liked,I rarely liked any one enough to be invested. There were one or two crushes, but over all no one I particularly cared for.

Just recently I began to see a guy, and not to air our dirty laundry, but we've had issues with his female friends having hard core jealousy issues. The proverbial "I saw him first" mentality has raised its head. Normally this would have been my cue to end this episode and travel to the next town where I would fight bad guys and save damsels in distress. (Insert Xena: Warrior Princess opening theme music here). However I like this guy, so I've decided this may be a two part episode and we'll see how it goes.

These friends are women I would have gotten along with splendidly I think. We all claim to be feminists, we all claim to want social equality of the sexes, we all claim that women should be supportive of one another. Yet when the first 'threat' to our hold on someone or something shows it's head we do what we've been taught to do. We compete for the affections of men to validate our worth as feminists.

Boy troubles aside this brings me to my point: Women MUST learn to support each other. Daddy issues, personal jealousy, no matter who was right, we must support one another.

"Oh well I'm a Godly woman, I build people up." You may be saying. To that I say, and pardon my language; Bull shit. Ask any woman in the church about how she feels about Joyce Myers, women in leadership rolls, and women supporting their families and I guarantee you the answers will be split, and most often time at least one of those subjects will end in something negative about another member of the same gender.

Biblically our roll models are so far from the modern interpretation of women in the church.

Deborah: A prophet of God, a judge of Israel. Her husband illicit two verses in the entire bible, Deborah Commands two chapters in Numbers and is cited as one of the prophets of our faith, who gained what was promised even before the death of Christ.

Esther: A woman living in a foreign land taken to be the wife of a man she did not want to be used for a greatness she wasn't ready for. Her narrative changes through out her book from a passive and obedient girl to a woman and Queen who maneuvers a complex and corrupt court system to save her people.

Priscilla: One of the first women to preach in the New Testament. She's often cited with writing a good portion of the book of Hebrews if not all of it. She's Along with her husband she became a celebrated missionaries and she even came up against early misogyny in the church when in Timothy there was a blanket call on women teaching men.

I could go on and on and on, but as I'm writing this on my lunch break at work I just don't have the time.


These women show us comradely, or even more prevalent their gender is not a threat to them. These women encountered men, and they encountered hardships, and they prevailed not because of their gender but because they were strong and courageous. Continuously we see women built up in the scriptures and made to stand on their own. We should learn from these women.

Like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has said: We teach girls to see each other as competition. We must learn the time and the place for it. Healthy rivalries for jobs, advancements, and sportsmanship are good. Well thought out debates on politics, human interests, and even pop stars will further us as a gender far more than any law requiring we be paid the same amount. (Though on a personal note wage regulations would be a helpful to me personally and economically.)

Instead we attack each other on the way we keep our hair, the men we're seeing, who hurt who's feelings, and the list goes on and on.

In closing; I don't have all the solutions, but I do know that I want to do my part to empower my fellow females, and to be uplifting when I can.

Nobody's Baby, Everybody's Girl

As I sit at my desk, taking a fifteen minute breather I think about my life.

It feels eerily surreal to sit at a desk in an office building with large glass panel walls, and trendy concrete floors, with a trendy 'open office floor plan' which still has offices for all the higher ups. This shell of a trendy urban office space, tucked away in an Atlanta suburb feels morbidly mundane.

I take a deep breath and move on to the seemingly endless string of tasks that my clients send in. This is my life. Wake up at 7:30, have a cup of tea, do my make up, snuggle the cat, do my hair, change, leave the house by 8:45, get to work by nine, have a cup of coffee, work, work, work, lunch, work, work, walk around the office park, work work, drive home by 6:30 if I'm lucky, make dinner, work on art projects, take a bath, sleep; repeat. If my day was a sheet of music it'd be the kind that kids learned to play a beginner level instrument with. It would be all single notes, repeated in increasingly high octaves until their teacher or their parents couldn't stand the screeching any more.

This year I'll be twenty-six years old. Many of you are sighing as you read that, twenty-six is so young you might think. However for me it'll be the oldest I've ever been. It feels very downhill, I am entering the second half of my twenties. A time when I should have been figuring out to do with my life, but in typical millennial fashion I spent a lot of time just trying to figure out me.

I read in an article recently a popular icon for twenty-something women reflect on turning twenty five. She mentioned that it was almost frightening because society sees any one under twenty-five still a child, so many young people approaching this age feel a sense of loosing their ability to fail. The real world suddenly feels all the more real when you don't have a soft landing spot of being 'the modern child'.

Reading that summary, and thinking about the women in my family, or women that I know when they were my age this seems very true.

By the time my mother was twenty-six she had two children, and traveled full time with my father and his band. My grandmother had three children, and owned an auto repair shop with my grandfather. I at twenty-six am single, with no children, and a job that I wouldn't consider my career. It's hard not to compare myself to traditional successes like that, by the time they were my age the defining women in my life had the standard "got it together" badges. Meanwhile I still talk to my cat as if he will answer and marathon Vampire flicks, followed by Disney flicks (I mean c'mon a girl has to sleep). But life isn't a comparison game. I have a lot of things down in life that women of those generations never had the chance to have. I live on my own and have a lot of things about me figured out. (I.e I am a serious introvert, but I love going out and being extroverted. I know a paradox, but I accept this about me.)

I find myself on the downside of twenty staring down a lot things in my future. (Imagine John Wayne having a stand off with his life choices as the bad guy.) At thirty, do I still want to be trapped behind a desk playing the same beginner sheet music? I know that don't. But how do I live a life where I pop out for lunch covered in paint, following cobblestones to tea room where no speaks English?

Should I sell that guitar, or should I learn to play it? What does a life where I sing for a living look like?

Could I even be creative full time? Do I need to play office worker to fund that sort of lifestyle?

What do I want to be when I grow up?

Staring at the down side of twenty, I realize that I don't want to do anything in halves, I want to dive head first into a passion and I want to swim in it. Completely soaked to the bone in it. If it's business, if it's art, if it's singing, what ever IT is. I want to be completely devoted to something that makes me happy.

I'm not scared of the next four years, or the next few months, or the next few hours, but I'm ready to start something that means something. It's uneasy, but, it's time, I can feel it in my bones.

In the video I have above there is a verse that I think sums up the thoughts going though my head right now:

And once you asked me well what's my biggest fear
That things would always remain so unclear
That one day I'd wake up all alone
With a big family and emptiness deep in my bones
That I would be so blinded, turn a deaf ear
And that my fake laugh would suddenly sound sincere

I don't want to get the place where I feel the need to justify why I didn't do something. I'm looking for me in the form of the future and I'm willing to look like I don't have it all together to get there.

Like a Rock, or at Least a Very Small Pebble in Your Shoe

Today I received some very bad news. A friend of mine passed away. She was a year older than me, about four inches taller, and in my opinion was a lot more graceful. She had cancer, and she battled with it for what seemed like a very short time and then she was gone.

What bothers me most about all the feelings I have associated with this news is that she and I were not very close. Our friendship was comprised of two lunch dates, an outing for the school we both attended, Skype calls or FaceBook chats a couple of times a year , and mutually liking one another's status and photos on FaceBook. I don't have a trunk full of memories of the two of us smiling and laughing, or sharing intimate details. I just have a long distance casual friendship, in which case neither of probably thought about the other unless we were on a FaceBook feed.

The timing of this news hit me at a bad time. Laying in bed this morning trying to figure out how I'm going to pay all of my bills and still put on that Halloween Party, I accidentally hit the Facebook app on my phone and there was the news. It felt like someone sucker punched me in the gut laying in my bed. My bed which is supposed to be the safest of places, especially to try and escape emotions.

I don't think I've been able to catch my breath from that emotional punch all day.

My mind is constantly racing right now. There are so many questions I was already asking God all of them started with the word 'Why'. This news just made them end with an angry exclamation point.

I share a trait with my Grandmother (I actually share several, but right now I'm just focusing on one), a trait a lot of women have, but not usually women in our family. Resting Bitch Face. (Sorry for the language sensitive readers) I can't tell you how many times in line at the grocery store have I been off in a pleasant day dream about walking out to my car to see Tom Hiddleston resting on the hood and offering to carry all my bags up the three flights of stairs to my apartment and then pay my bills when the person in line before will sheepishly cut in. "Sorry you have to wait, I don't really have that many things. I know it looks like a lot, and you seem to be in a hurry." As if the disdain on my face is directed at them. Awakening from my day dreams I realize I must have been scowling in their direction. Honestly I don't mean to, It's just my face.

This face has been my armor for a very long time. In talking with my Grandmother, who in many ways has been a rock to our family, I realize it has for her too. While I'm not sure my grandmother would agree with this assessment I realize I'm very much like the Hulk. I'm safe as long as I stay (or look) angry.

Today brought to head a lot of feelings I have had wrapped up inside of me. I'm still coming terms with a lot of them. This isn't a blog of self discovery, or complaining, it's just a blog to try and get something out of my head. The feeling that vulnerability is a weakness to me in my sadness, and a lot of times even in my happiness. Right now I feel like the only thing keeping me going is that I'm so angry, angry at God for posing all these questions that don't have answers. (Why aren't you providing for me? Why won't you heal people? Why do I have to live in anxiety?) Angry at people for letting me down, or leaving me behind. Angry at myself for not doing more.

 The thought crossed my mind today when I was asked if I was okay "You can't be nice to me. If you're nice to me I can't be angry, and if I'm angry I can't keep all of these emotions from spilling out."

I hate when my emotions spill out.

That messy horrible crying girl that comes along with emotions just isn't who I want to be. I want to be strong, and I want to be a rock. But looking strong and feeling strong aren't the same things.

I can't live my life being angry, if I was going to self Identify with a super hero I wouldn't want to be the Hulk. (I could go into who I'd rather be, but as I am constantly saying in these blogs; That's another blog for another time)

Right now I'm having to learn to unclench my fist, I'm saying this now, officially, in writing so legal. I don't want to be angry any more. (why did I write this at work because now I'm about to cry)
I want to be really strong, I want to have people who lift me up, I want to be happy again. Not fake happy which dissolves when I'm alone, but really happy. I'm not sure how to get there, but I want to try.

This Girl Is On Fire - Someone put some water on her please.

For those of you who don't know. I live alone. No roommate, no boyfriend, no siblings; utterly alone. Well, apart from one very bossy cat, but he doesn't count since he pays no bills. (Why isn't he internet famous yet? I need him to start supporting me!) I live alone, not because I couldn't find any one on this side of town to be my roommate, but, because I want to live alone.

When I decided to move out I told my family my plan. Get a cheap apartment and be a hermit. I was met with a lot of very well meaning oppositions. "Won't that be expensive?" "You'll be lonely" "Go ahead and look for a cheap two bedroom, you'll want a roommate, I promise you that." While it is expensive, it's exactly what I wanted. I'm an extremely independent woman and I want to be able to do things for myself.

I had to Upgrade to a bigger cart

So, let me set the stage for you; Saturday, September 19, 2015. Ikea in Atlanta Georgia.

This weekend was the first weekend in a long time that I had any extra cash. Here lately it's been a struggle just to keep myself and the afore mentioned cat fed. (Seriously why isn't he internet famous yet?) With the little bit of extra cash I have I decide that it's time for me to take care of a few things around the house that are bothering me. I needed curtains for the bedroom, a tv stand for the living room, new rug, some storage bits for the laundry room, and a lamp.

(Are you bored yet? This is a super long set up.)

As I'm walking through Ikea, weaving through couples and families I  begin to notice something. I'm the only one alone. Which doesn't bother me. What does bother me is the looks I begin to get. Especially as my cart fills up. I begin to get a look I've become very accustomed to living on my own. "That poor girl, she has no one to take care of her." It's a look I've come to despise.

As I mentioned before I want to live alone. What a lot of people don't know about me is that I also don't want any one to take care of me. I value my independence. The idea of having a spouse to wash the car, take care of the bank statements, hang the curtains, put together the pace board furniture doesn't appeal to me. In fact at this point in my life having a spouse all together doesn't sound great. (Well apart from a few reasons I won't mention because my parents are probably reading this.) (That's a joke Mum ;D ) (Ohmygod someone help me get out this whole I'm digging myself into.)(I know it's ironic that I'm asking for help in a blog about independence!)

The Ikea story is one in a long line of of these looks. I don't blame the people giving the looks, and I've stopped having a sense of righteous indignation about it. The speech about feminism and equality is no longer lingering on my lips daring someone to make a remark about needing a husband. In fact when people make those comments I laugh now. Low-Key sexism is funny to me because I'm secure in the fact that I don't need a man to take care of me.

I see a lot of blogs these days talking about a christian perspective on feminism. Having grown up in the church I'm ultimately excited to see that there is a shift in the thought process Christians have towards women. But this move is largely directed towards the purity culture movement. About holding men and women to the same standards of purity, and having equality between the sexes in marriage. God being the head of a house hold and all that. (I'll write another blog about this at a later date, specifically how Mum and Dad taught us this growing up. I should of wrote it on their anniversary but I totally didn't think of it until now. Worst daughter ever.)

What I don't see in this new "Jesus Was a Feminist" movement is an equality between married and unmarried women. The opinion of women seems to still be that they're not worth listening to until they've got a ring on their finger.

Cheers to modesty!

In Christian circles women are girls until they walk down the aisle. Good Christian Girls. GCG's are the type of creatures who live together as room mates building community. Community is a pseudo sorority atmosphere in which they watch chick-flicks, drink wine (but they don't get drunk), and talk about boys who they're not dating because they respect themselves to much. They post pictures of their bible studies on Instagram #girlsbiblestudy, they host a singles small group, which is made up almost entirely of the girls who live in their house. GCG's also CRAVE marriage.

I was a GCG for a long time. The only reason I'm not a GCG now is that I realized a few things.
A. I'm not a girl. I'm a grown ass woman.
B. My worth isn't defined by my chastity, my church attendance, or my living my life so no one can slander me.
C. What I say is equally important now as it will be when/if I ever get married.

If you live in a house with a bunch of other girls, or have every stopped seeing someone because you want to know if God is really calling you to be with this person please do not think I'm judging you. Because I'm not. What this blog is meant to do is draw attention to the way we're expected to act.
If you honestly feel like you shouldn't live in a co-ed house, or a multi-religious house, then do you boo. If you really feel like God told you to stop dating the guy because you were putting him (the guy) first, more power to you. I'm very sure that was a hard thing to do I respect that. But think long and hard about why you felt/feel that way about these things.

You shouldn't need to worry about how your small group leader or pastor feels about your relationships or your singleness. You're a strong christian woman.  Your opinions matter now!

This blog isn't a judgey thing, so please don't miss my meaning. I'm not saying you should look down on any one because of their circumstances or choices. What I am saying is that we as women shouldn't paint our selves into a Good Christian Girl box. We are all equal in the eyes of God. We all have something to say. Psalm 139: 17 - 18 says that his thoughts for us are innumerable. In fact read all of 139, it tells us that there is no place we can escape the presence of God, that he formed us and created us with all the tender care to make us exactly who we are today.

As women, we're not excluded from the promises of God to rule and reign as co-heirs with Christ. Galations 3:28 makes this exceedingly clear. There is no more male nor female; we are all one in Christ.

For me Saturday, September 19, 2015 carrying a 54lbs tv stand up three flights of stairs I remembered that my independence isn't my stubbornness to prove that I can do things on my own. My independence is my own choice, to need no one else but God as I go through life. I don't need to be defined by the box my church has created for me. (My church wouldn't put me in a box, but again, that's another blog for another day) I'm a strong woman. I'm a Godly woman. I am a co-heir with Christ.

I can also assemble a tv stand in less than 45 minutes.

Help, I'm Lost in an Un-factual SharkNado

Don't get me wrong I love Shark Week, but they repeatedly stray away from real science and move into sensationalism.

Last night they aired a show about Tonic Immobility called "Zombie Sharks". The findings they shared were already proved science thanks to research by Mike Rutzen. The biggest difference in Rutzen's findings and the rehash in Zombie Sharks was that Sharks were painted as aggressive man eaters, but in Rutzens they were portrayed as predators.

Shark's and by extension most marine predators are treated like monsters. When is the last time you turned on an nature program about big cats and saw them painted as ravenous blood thirsty killers. We're working on conserving them. Not giving them a reason to be feared. With sharks we've realized that blood sells a lot better than conservation.

We can't be surprised when we see that people refuse to give up overfishing and hunting down sharks when they're seen as monsters who have to be stopped. The battle for conservation has be played out in a way that paints sharks as predators to be respected and not as monsters to be feared.